Attitudes Toward Parenting in a Lesbian and Gay Community Convenience Sample

This study sought to measure attitudes of lesbians and gay men toward lesbian and gay parents. Participants (126 gay men and 139 lesbians from 5 Australian states) were given one vignette featuring either a lesbian, gay, or heterosexual couple parenting a 16-year-old child. They rated the vignette parents in terms of their parenting competencies and suitability as parents. Findings suggest that overall, lesbian and gay parents were rated more positively than heterosexual parents, with lesbian participants being more likely to rate parents overall in more positive ways. Regression analysis did not find that the parent status of participants predicted their ratings of gay or lesbian parents per se, but a correlation was found between the number of children that participants had and their rating of the vignettes. This suggests the importance of future research including not only larger and more diverse sample sizes, but also research that examines the interaction of parenting status, gender, and number of children upon attitudes toward heterosexual, lesbian, and gay parents.